A while ago we discussed a software-focused view of Network Interface Cards (NICs) with Luke Gorrie, and a hardware-focused view of them with Or Gerlitz (Mellanox), Andy Gospodarek (Broadcom) and Jiri Pirko (Mellanox).

Why would anyone want to implement features in hardware and not in software, and what would be the best hardware implementation? We discussed these dilemmas with Silvano Gai in Episode 110 of Software Gone Wild podcast.

Silvano also wrote a number of blog posts that you might find interesting:

• The Pendulum of Domain-Specific Hardware
• Amdahl’s Law and SpecInt
• Dennard Scaling
• Is Moore’s Law Dead?

It’s worth noting that Silvano works with Pensando, the next MPLS startup (although this time the usual Cisco spin-in path didn’t quite work out)… and if you want to know what they’re doing read the rest of his blog posts, and watch Pensando presentations from Cloud Field Day 7.